


Talk SMS to Me

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Punisher (Comics)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, M/M, Technologically Illiterate Frank Castle, idiots flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 06:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19762861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Frank is trying to learn how to text on a honestly ancient flip phone.





	Talk SMS to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in the same 'Modernized Comics' AU that Talking In Your Sleep takes place in -- Comics verse, but like, slid forward in time so texting and smartphones is a thing.

In all fairness, when Frank needed to learn something, or was interested in learning it, he made a pretty decent student. He liked learning, even; he liked the sense of shoring up a sort of mental armory. Knowledge was power and in that regard he was never really going to be distinguished or particularly notable the way he aimed to be with physical stuff, but he wasn't going to be completely in the weeds, either.

The issue wasn't that he couldn't be taught, and it wasn't that Lieberman was bad at teaching. It's just.

Boring.

This tech shit is boring, and that's a flimsy, childish excuse not to put in the effort but it's the _truth_. The phone is tiny, half the time he feels like he's gonna snap it in half when he flips it open, and the effort it takes to slowly tap out whole words when the keys are _tiny_ and each one stands for three or four letters? Too much. It would be so much simpler to just call each other.

The sleek smartphones Lieberman's put together for them are a little better. The picture quality is really something, for one thing, and they have full keyboards on the screens, for another. Smartphones are like horrible hand-held computers, and Frank could work with them (even if a phone call was still many times simpler). He liked the games Lieberman has put on it for him, Something Blasters and this incredibly frustrating puzzle thing with animals hurling themselves out of slingshots. 

Smartphones also had access to the internet. Frank liked the internet and, if his matches on that hook up program he'd loaded on his phone after Lieberman gave it to him were any indication, the internet liked him too.

But the shitty little clam-shell, flip-open, cheap as dirt 'burner' Lieberman insisted he carry on jobs instead of the smartphone? 

Yeah, that was a piece of shit and frustrating enough for Frank to assume the devil himself has a hand in creating it. 

"Frank, come on, you could at least _try_ to send words that make sense." Lieberman says, groans really, looking at the screen of his own awful burner and then back at Frank, who elects to look at his hands and the shitty phone in them rather than back at the man working double time to finish repairs on his battle van _and_ get him fluent enough in this text shorthand to employ the code he'd come up with.

He hears the crumple of paper just in time to turn his head towards Lieberman to get hit in the face with the ball of loose leaf.

"This is important!" Lieberman growls, holding his phone up and shaking it a little. "If I can't read what you send me, I can't very well come help you, now can I?"

And he's right. Of course he is, he often is; they haven't had to really use the code yet and it's still the kind of thing that's going to require a lot of testing to get right. But the reminder just makes Frank want to dig his heels in on it more, petulant -- It's stupid, no matter how important it is. 

Still, typing on these tiny keypads is a special kind of torture, especially trying to do it fast. Doing it in an emergency situation sounds impossible, and Frank keeps his eyes on his hands and lifts a shoulder in a shrug.

"God, alright, fine." Lieberman throws his hands up, shoving his crappy burner phone in his pockets and stepping back around the van, ducking under the hood. Even across the room with him talking into the van and muttering, Frank can hear him grumbling as he gets elbow deep in the guts of the engine. "You don't need my help, god knows that, right? Stupid me."

Frank's had teachers give up on him before. Sometimes it's actually kind of satisfying; he doesn't have to learn if no one's up to the task of trying to _make_ him learn. That's a teacher's whole job, finding ways to _make_ kids learn, and there's something to be said for making someone completely incapable of doing their job.

A few minutes pass and the muttering dies out but Lieberman doesn't duck back out of the engine work to apologize for snapping. That's usually the way these things go; Lieberman over works himself and gets snarlsome over it, Frank snarls back, the grumble for a minute or so more, and then Lieberman apologizes. Every once in a great while, Frank apologizes first. 

Either way, the path this usually follows involves an apology that neither of them really should have to make.

Well, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they let the tension build until it snaps and then indulge in the stupid simplicity of nakedly wanting each other. 

This doesn't feel like it's leading to that either. This just feels like Lieberman genuinely getting ticked off over him being dismissive over the whole thing. Often times is seems like Lieberman takes certain things a good deal more seriously than Frank sees any reason to. 

Huffing a low noise, Frank flips the stupid shitty burner open again and carefully -- it's an excruciatingly slow process, but he can't get faster if he doesn't practice, he supposes -- taps out another message, watching with interest as Lieberman startles at the chime of his ringer in his pocket. 

Lieberman's laugh is worth the effort it takes to type coherently on a phone. Frank hears him grab the rag he’s been using to with grease and oil off his hands before it slaps him in the side of the head and then falls gracelessly to the floor.

“You can’t send me dirty texts and end them with a colon-end-parenthesis _smile_ ,” he says, lecturing even as he’s laughing. “God, at least use a wink, you can’t be loose on Grindr texting like some horny lobotomy patient.”

“I’m not loose on whatever the hell that is,” Frank lies. “I don’t text at anyone but you." That, Lieberman scoffs at with such open disbelief Frank thinks it should piss him off, and shocks himself by chuckling instead. “C’mon, stop playin’ with the van,” he offers. “Maybe I learn better laying down.”

“Maybe you need better lines.”

“Sure," Frank agrees easily. "I’ll let you teach me some.”


End file.
